Umudike Journal of Engineering and Technology

The flow characteristics of honey, groundnut oil, palm kernel oil and palm oil were investigated as influenced by spindle rotational speed and temperature with the view of aiding processing and handling operations. This was conducted with a concentric cylinder viscometer at speed ranges of 0.1- 200 revolutions per minute (rpm) and temperature range of 35 – 95 ^oC. Results show that apparent viscosity, generally, increased with increase in spindle speed. Apparent viscosity values increased from 0.01Pa.s to 0.30Pa.s for honey at corresponding spindle speeds of 0.1rpm to 0.6rpm. For palm kernel oil, 0.0015Pa.s to 0.13Pa.s was recorded at speeds of 1rpm to 200rpm respectively. Flow behaviour indices of 1.220, 1.317, 1.211, and 1.232 were also noted for honey, groundnut oil, palm kernel oil and palm oil respectively, which indicate shear-thickening characteristics. More so, consistency coefficient values of 0.00595, 0.00375, 0.00104 and 0.00893Pa.sⁿ were observed for honey, groundnut oil, palm kernel oil and palm oil respectively and the temperature dependence of apparent viscosity was found to obey the Arrhenius law with low activation energies for all samples.